Good explorefag games

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Moving earlier than Kenshi and Outward, Legend of Grimrock I (2012) & II (2014) are great exploration-focused games, in the spirit of Dungeon Master and the "real-time blobber" subgenre it founded.

 

[Agesilaus]

...if you're not a storyfag...

Good exploration without substance or meaning? yeah, we're done here. Go play the pokies, crpgs are wasted on you.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I think games like HoMM and AoW are also worth mentioning when comes to exploration in the broader sense. Discovering the map and its treasures is half of the fun. A recent game of that type with an excellent map and gameplay is SpellForce: Conquest of Eo.

 

[just]

starcom nexus


and his next game, currently in ea

 

[Maxie]

I think games like HoMM and AoW are also worth mentioning when comes to exploration in the broader sense. Discovering the map and its treasures is half of the fun. A recent game of that type with an excellent map and gameplay is SpellForce: Conquest of Eo.

Nigga, they're generated from tilesets. Unless it's handcrafted content, exploration is fake.

 

[Eirinjas]

Moving earlier than Kenshi and Outward, Legend of Grimrock I (2012) & II (2014) are great exploration-focused games, in the spirit of Dungeon Master and the "real-time blobber" subgenre it founded.

The Grimrock games are awesome. EXCEPT for those timed action puzzles where you have to dance perfectly. There was one really long, frustrating one in the first game that I am still butthurt about.

Styx: Master of Shadows



Also, the Arkham Asylum games are Metroidvanias.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I think games like HoMM and AoW are also worth mentioning when comes to exploration in the broader sense. Discovering the map and its treasures is half of the fun. A recent game of that type with an excellent map and gameplay is SpellForce: Conquest of Eo.

Nigga, they're generated from tilesets. Unless it's handcrafted content, exploration is fake.

I have no clue, and I must bark.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Also, the Arkham Asylum games are Metroidvanias.

Yeah, some 3D Metroidvanias can be pretty good, obviously including the 3D Metroid Primes themselves - Arkham Asylum 1, when I finally got into it turned out to be a 3D Metroid - more recently, I thought Jedi: Fallen Order was a pretty enjoyable and competent 3D Metroidvania. There is a lot of backtracking, but I don't think you are ever locked out of getting 100% of every tomb/planet.

 

[octavius]

I think games like HoMM and AoW are also worth mentioning when comes to exploration in the broader sense. Discovering the map and its treasures is half of the fun.

Some of the user-made maps have excellent exploration.
HoMM maps tend to be rather linear, though.

 

[kangaxx]

A very left field niche suggestion would be Pools if you can pay less than a fiver. Definitely not a hard recommend, there's no gameplay, 100% of the "game" is exploring a nightmarish and cavernous maze-like public swimming pool building. It's very strange indeed.

 

[JarlFrank]

needlessly simulationistic

Simulationism is never needless (I'm a simulationfag).

 

[JarlFrank]

starcom nexus


and his next game, currently in ea

I played through Starcom Nexus a year or two ago, amazing game. There are a lot of space exploration games in this style, but Starcom Nexus is the best because most of its content is hand-made and there's actual quests to follow.

Already got the sequel but gonna wait until it's out of EA to play it.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

Ultima VII (both parts) is always the first one that comes to mind for me. So many optional dungeons and easter eggs, interesting and varied locales, different modes of travel to find different areas. Skyrim and Elex are probably the most satisfying in recent memory for exploration. There were a lot of cookie-cutter dungeons in Skyrim, but it was 100 times better than Oblivion and even Morrowind in that regard.

 

[JarlFrank]

There were a lot of cookie-cutter dungeons in Skyrim, but it was 100 times better than Oblivion and even Morrowind in that regard.

Honestly I completely lost interest in Skyrim's dungeon crawling once I realized they all follow the same pattern, with almost no exceptions.
Mostly linear tunnel towards the end of the dungeon, where you find some way to get right back to the entrance. Donut shaped, basically. Every dungeon is a circle where you start at point A and when you reach point Z it loops right back around to A to give you a convenient exit.

All Skyrim dungeons are like that, so whenever you enter one, you know exactly what to expect, and there's no joy of discovery when you already know what's coming.

 

[Butter]

Skyrim exploration is terrible. Other than some pretty sights, you're never going to find anything interesting when you "explore" its theme park world. Leveled enemies, leveled loot, aggressively linear dungeons that aren't worth doing, maybe one of the six random encounters that aren't interesting the first time you see them.

 

[lukaszek]

Skyrim exploration is terrible. Other than some pretty sights, you're never going to find anything interesting when you "explore" its theme park world. Leveled enemies, leveled loot, aggressively linear dungeons that aren't worth doing, maybe one of the six random encounters that aren't interesting the first time you see them.

install requiem

 

[NecroLord]

Skyrim exploration is terrible. Other than some pretty sights, you're never going to find anything interesting when you "explore" its theme park world. Leveled enemies, leveled loot, aggressively linear dungeons that aren't worth doing, maybe one of the six random encounters that aren't interesting the first time you see them.

It's more or less the Bethesda design principle.
It all looks so majestic from a distance. See those mountains? You can CLIMB those mountains!
The wonderful scenery from the distance.
Buuuut then you get up close and it all looks like shit because it's the overused Bugthesda engine...

Beautiful and majestic from far away, Ugly and repulsive from up close.

 

[Serus]

...if you're not a storyfag...

Good exploration without substance or meaning? yeah, we're done here. Go play the pokies, crpgs are wasted on you.

No storyfag != total lack of story. It's all about priorities.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

No storyfag != total lack of story. It's all about priorities.

That's right. Ultima IV has the best plot in the series anyway, but it won't waste the player's time with silly NPC banter. Instead it offers a solid player-driven system with no spoon-fed dialogue options, that encourages the player to use his brain to solve quests, to sequence break, and so on. Which is a perfect fit for an explorationfag game.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I haven't seen anyone mention Might & Magic Dark Messiah yet. The game is largely on rails, but the dungeons and areas within each zone are a joy to explore. Tons of little secrets to discover and vantage points to exploit. Lots of tunnels to spelunk and ropes to climb. The gameplay emphasis on using the environment to the player's advantage strongly shines through and makes exploring all the better. With some slight tweaks, this could have been the best Indiana Jones game ever made.

Prey, like other Arkane games mentioned, is also fantastic for exploration. The space station the player inhabits is expansive, layered, and begs the player to sift through it. Certain areas are blocked in a manner to tease the player into developing certain abilities. I found myself deliberately trying not to advance the plot so that I could fully experiment with an area. Luckily, the designers do a good job of keeping old areas fresh. The the player character's abilities expand, so does the player's access to the station. It's grand. The nature of the plot and enemies also creates constant tension, so exploring always carries risk. It's a phenomenal game.

 

[Xzylvador]

Kenshi is explorefag heaven.
Really hoping Kenshi2 in Unreal Engine 5 will fix the performance and crashes but keep everything else the exact same. Perfection doesn't need fixing.

 

[Agesilaus]

No storyfag != total lack of story. It's all about priorities.

That's right. Ultima IV has the best plot in the series anyway, but it won't waste the player's time with silly NPC banter. Instead it offers a solid player-driven system with no spoon-fed dialogue options, that encourages the player to use his brain to solve quests, to sequence break, and so on. Which is a perfect fit for an explorationfag game.

It's just 10,000 hours of grinding to become Lord British's ideal man...

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

One game that might not get credit for exploration, is NWN2 Storm of Zehir. It's done via the overland map, but I still found it compelling. Lots of skills checks and classic D&D, even if set in the exotic land of Chult.

Also, BETRAYAL AT KRONDOR. One of the OG exploration and open world RPGs. The world is massive with distinctive towns and villages to visit. There are mines, dungeons, and forests to explore. Riddle chests to discover. Classic tropes abound. You're going to need your ropes, shovels, rations, torches, medicine, lockpicks, and repair kits. You cover lots of ground, and the journey back to civilization is often just as perilous as your conquest into the wilderness was. Excellent game that holds up to this day.

 

[gabel]

Doom (Doom 2, wads)
Guild Wars

 

[Rincewind]

Excellent game that holds up to this day.

But... that flight simulator interface... I also hate it that it does the adventure game style thing that certain actions trigger a side-quest, but you can not discover the side-quest organically and complete it before meeting the dispenser-NPC.

So what does a man like me do:

- Explore everything carefully on my merry way through the map.
- Some dude three villages later gives me some side quest to investigate something in a village I visited earlier.
- I'm like, WTF? I did investigate everything there just 30 minutes ago.
- Okay... so now I need to scan the whole map *again* and knock on every single door one more time, because *now* I will get a reply if I knock on one of those doors... But not before I met the quest-dispenser NPC!

I really dislike this style of game design. It was somewhat annoying in adventure games that you needed to backtrack, but in adventures the amount of locations is usually low, so it's doable there with minimal annoyance.

Now, in an open-world style RPG I need to go and look under *every single rock* again... Plus the problem is compounded by the flight-sim interface, so it's a lot more hassle than in your standard adventure game where you can traverse all locations relatively painlessly (and without being annoyed by random trash mobs).

Not allowing the player to discover side quests organically = EPIC DESIGN FAIL